1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information presentation system and a portable telephone apparatus for providing various information data, such as stock information data, sport information data, map information data and the like, by using a communication line such as a telephone line or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an information presentation system, in which various information presentation companies give various information, such as stock information, sport information, map information and the like, through telephone lines to clients and the like, is constituted such that current information can be heard by voice or can be displayed on a display device etc., by dialing a particular telephone number.
A first example of such an information presentation system using a telephone line is a system in which a stock securities company or an information presentation company gives, by voice, current or real time stock prices to a client and the like through a telephone.
In case of the stock information presentation system, a particular telephone number is assigned for each industry division, such as a construction division, a food division, an electrical apparatus division, and the like. For example, when a user dials a telephone number assigned to the electrical apparatus division, the user can hear a voice broadcast read out in an order of predetermined stock codes for respective companies together with a dairy return (increase or decrease against a stock price of a previous day) in such a way that, in the most recent stock prices of listed companies belonging to the electrical apparatus division, TOSHIBA is .largecircle..largecircle. (YEN)/.largecircle..largecircle. (YEN) higher, MITSUBISHIDENKI is .largecircle..largecircle. (YEN)/.largecircle..largecircle. (YEN) higher, FUJIDENKI is .largecircle..largecircle. (YEN)/.largecircle..largecircle. (YEN) higher, and the like. Here, the stock codes for respective companies are codes, each of which is set in advance in a stock industry for each listed company. For example, in the construction division, codes from a 1800 level to a 1900 level are set in such a way that a code of TAISEIKENSETSU is 1801, a code of OBAYASHIGUMI is 1802 and the like. In the electrical apparatus division, codes from a 6500 level to a 6900 level are set in such a way that a code of HITACHISEISAKUSHO is 6501, a code of TOSHIBA is 6502 and the like. In the stock industry, the stock transactions are performed, and the stock information data are treated, on the basis of the stock codes set in this manner. In general, such stock codes for respective companies are often seen in a newspaper dedicated to a stock, a magazine dedicated to a stock and the like.
Thus, when a user desires to know a stock price about a particular company, by dialing the telephone number assigned to the industry division to which this particular company belongs, the user can hear the stock price at a time point when the order of this particular company comes in the reading sequence. Presently, the number of the companies is 123, which belong to the electrical apparatus division on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange Market. In this division, the stock price information for each company can be heard through the above mentioned stock information presentation system, approximately every 4 minutes as one cycle.
A second example is a system in which a sport related company and an information presentation system gives to a client and the like through a telephone, by voice, current or real time sport information (various items, such as a competition card scheduled on that day, a result of a game held on that day, information as for the game currently in progress at that time).
In a case of the sport information presentation system, a particular telephone number is assigned to each of sport genres, such as a baseball, a horse race, a golf, a SUMO wrestling and the like. Thus, when a user desires to know the sport information about a particular item in a particular sport genre, by dialing the telephone number assigned to this sport genre, the user can hear the sport information about this item at a time point when the order of this item comes in the reading sequence.
A third example of such an information presentation system using a telephone line is a system in which an information presentation company gives map information.
Recently, a retrieving or searching function is extremely enriched in a navigation apparatus represented by a car navigation apparatus for displaying map data and the like in the vicinity of a current position of a car. Hence, a navigation apparatus is developed which has a function of displaying map data of a territory corresponding to a telephone number if inputting the telephone number to the navigation apparatus. In order to implement such a retrieving function, a maker of the navigation apparatus has a huge amount of retrieval database, and suitably edits and prepares various map data and the like based on the retrieval database to thereby provide it in a form of CD-ROM and the like to memory devices of the respective navigation apparatuses.
In the third example of the information presentation system, a portable telephone can be constituted such that it has a small type of a displaying device such as an LCD (liquid crystal display device) to display the map data thereon. However, it is virtually impossible to provide such a portable telephone with the database concerned in a widely ranging map which can be retrieved or searched by inputting a telephone number as mentioned above, because of the constraint of a hardware such as a memory and the like, since portability such as smallness and lightness is essentially important. Therefore, Japanese Patent Application Laying Open (KOKAI) Hei. No. 6-350733 proposes a portable telephone navigation system, in which each of basic stations, which are located at intervals of approximately 100 meters in a town so as to communicate with the portable telephone apparatuses, stores the map data as for the map at the vicinity of the respective basic station, and, if a user indicates a map request from one portable telephone apparatus, the basic station communicating with this portable telephone apparatus sends the stored map data to the portable telephone apparatus, so that the portable telephone apparatus receives and displays it. According to this system, each of the basic stations may have an enough memory to store the map at the vicinity of the respective basic station. Hence, the portable telephone apparatus can automatically obtain the map data as for the map at the vicinity of the pertinent portable telephone apparatus, by indicating the map request.
However, there are various problems in the above explained first to third examples of the information presentation system as followings.
In the first example as explained above, the stock information through the voice broadcast in the above described first example is always continued to be supplied in the order of the stock codes during the market quotation. Thus, this results in a problem that, even when the user desires to know the stock information about a particular company, the user must wait for several minutes while hearing unnecessary information about companies other than the particular company based on the timing at which the user telephones. For example, in a case of the electrical apparatus division, the user must wait for 4 minutes at the maximum. Then unfortunately telephoning at a time point immediately after the order of the particular company, the user must truly wait for 4 minutes. Thus, this is very inconvenient. Moreover, this results in an ineffective utilization of a telephone resource such as a telephone line and the like.
Although the order of the companies whose informations are supplied by voice is the order of the predetermined stock codes, a user who is not widely experienced in the stock transaction must wait for the order of the particular company while looking for respective companies on a stock column of a newspaper or a stock code table. Otherwise, there is a very high possibility that the user fails to hear the stock information about the pertinent company. If failing to hear the stock information as mentioned above, the user must wait for approximately 4 minutes in a case of the electrical apparatus division, for example. Moreover, this is extremely inconvenient also to a user who is widely experienced in the stock transaction, since the user must again wait for 4 minutes when rechecking the word escape or the mishearing or when intending to deal with many companies.
On the other hand, from the viewpoint of the information provider, when a user desires the presentation of the stock information about a desirable company, it is unfair to charge a fee for a data presentation including an information presentation which is not useful to the user. Otherwise, charging the fee for the information only as for the desirable company results in a complex system.
In the second example as explained above, the sport information through the voice broadcast in the above described second example is supplied in an appropriate order, after appropriate items in the respective sport genres are set by the information provider at that time. This results in a problem that, even when a user desires to know the sport information about a particular item, a user must wait for several minutes while hearing unnecessary information about items other than the particular item, based on the timing when telephoning. Furthermore, this also results in the ineffective utilization of the telephone resource such as the telephone line and the like.
On the other hand, from the viewpoint of the information provider, when a user desires a presentation of sport information as for a desirable item in a desirable sport genre, it is unfair to charge a fee for a data presentation including an information presentation which is not useful to the user. Otherwise, charging the fee for the information only as for the desirable item results in the complex system.
In the third example as explained above, a huge amount of retrieval database owned by the above mentioned navigation apparatus maker is used only for simply producing the navigation apparatus, for example, for writing map data of a particular territory or a particular type to the storage medium, such as CD-ROM and the like, to be set in the navigation apparatus. In other words, a directly effective utilization for the user of the navigation apparatus is not promoted.
Moreover, in the third example, only the map at the vicinity of the current position of the user of the portable telephone can be automatically displayed on a display device provided on the portable telephone. That is, it has a problem that it is impossible to retrieve and display various map data with high free degrees. Further, according to this navigation system, in many basic stations, it is necessary to store the map data concerned in the peripheral territories for respective one of the basic stations, so that it is also necessary to perform operations for the map data, such as an initialization, a change, an update, a modification and the like of the map data, for respective one of the basic stations. This results in another problem that the operations become complex.